Have you ever wondered

what the meaning of life is?

Have you ever pondered

why we are here?

This world of struggle

seems extremely painful

where pleasures and suffering

go hand in hand

What have we done

to deserve such a fate?

crawling through embers

for momentary joys

Those who do not

turn to seek an answer

are doomed to repeat

this existence again and again

Some say

this is the way

of this heartless universe

others say

we were born in sin

and this life is the atonement

for that reason

believe in Someone

and Heaven you shall win

But I have heard

there were ancient sages

who sang for us some immortal verses

Hearing which will sooth our hearts

and give us strength to become free

those words are pure nectar

that liberate us from these mortal hearses

Hear ye, children of immortal bliss.

even ye that resides in Higher spheres!

I have found the Ancient One, blazing like the sun, beyond all darkness.

knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again.

Shrinwantu vishwe amritasya putra

ā ye dhāmāni divyāni tasthu

Vedām ayetām purusham mahantam

āditya varanam tamasā parasthāh

Tvameva vidhithva atimrityu meti,

nānyah pantha vidyathe ayanāya

NOTE:"Children of Immortal Bliss" is a phrase that Swami Vivekānanda used frequently, quoting from the Svétashwatara Upanishad. I wrote this poem, heavily inspired by that and the brilliant and illuminating lectures by Swami Sarvapriyānanda, a brilliant Swami of the Ramakrishna Order.

Here's a section quoted from his World Parliament of Religions address in 1893.

> Well, then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death. But here is another question: Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed down into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and fro at the mercy of good and bad actions — a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever-raging, ever-rushing, uncompromising current of cause and effect; a little moth placed under the wheel of causation which rolls on crushing everything in its way and waits not for the widow's tears or the orphan's cry? The heart sinks at the idea, yet this is the law of Nature. Is there no hope? Is there no escape? — was the cry that went up from the bottom of the heart of despair. It reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again." "Children of immortal bliss" — what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name — heirs of immortal bliss — yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth — sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.